Guild Wars 2

Alright, I have only one question:
Will these updates take place on Heart of Thorns’ release date, or will they happen before?
It’s obviously a big overhaul so I wouldn’t be surprised if it coincided with the expansion’s release, but at the same time I want this in my face so bad that I don’t want to wait!

Since “Once a specialization has been equipped, a character will be able to select a single trait for each tier to help customize that specialization” has been stated in your blog post, how does limiting the number of traits players have to choose from within any trait tier empower players to make more diverse builds?

Currently players can choose 2 traits within the same tier. Limiting all players to 1 trait per tier to [make] “each choice much more compelling”, as you say in your post, seems like a loquacious way of saying “you’re gonna have to deal with the less I’m gonna give ya.” [I say this as an often loquacious, grandiloquent writer.]

Also, will the large hexagon in the specializations interface, on the left, be used for some type of trait modifier or is it simply an aesthetic placeholder that has no player controlled functionality? (referring to the first image of the Specializations, Part One: A Primer here)

Will players finally have weighed input in decisions that completely rip the rug from under us? Now matter how you look at it, you guys are completely rewriting the trait system. I would be more willing to go with this if you released a list of all the traits meant to replace the ones currently in the game and let players vote on which they want to keep and which should be reworked. My biggest fear is that we’ll end up with something like Disruptor’s Sustainment again and you guys won’t even acknowledge how bad it is, regardless of nearly your entire playerbase being in agreement about it.

Will leveling items such as the Tomes of Knowledge still work once Heart of Thorns launches? I’m not the only one whom has enough saved up to instantly level a Revenant to 80. I’m okay with going back and doing hero challenges to unlock utilities and traits as long as I don’t have to go through leveling again. All the recent changes, like the New Player Experience, have taken all the fun out of leveling for me. To be perfectly honest, even if you guys have plans to making leveling better, I don’t trust you to fix it in a way that I would be content with. After all, you’re the ones that came up with the New Player Experience and Disruptor’s Sustainment. I don’t mean for that to sound as bitter as it does but those are my feelings on the matter. I can’t deny them.

Will the Scrolls of Knowledge be turned into flush fodder that we can actually use? I HATE the absurd amount of RNG in this game and the mystic forge sits on the throne of RNG. On the other hand, I’m also concerned about a repeat of that whole deal with the blade shards. Basically I want anything my scrolls are traded in for to be worth it in my eyes, not the developer’s eyes. Those are two very different perspectives.

If you absolutely, positively, inexplicably HAVE to give the new mesmer specialization an offhand shield, can you give all mesmers access to a mainhand pistol as well? That will easily appease so many mesmer mains! Make skill 1 and 3 on it do decent aoe damage and they’ll be ready to name their kids after you!

Follow up on the Trait-Line Stats
From what I have got out of the blog post:
Power, Precision, Toughness, Vitality → Integrated into the base stats and Items.
Profession specific → 50% base; 50% upon selecting the elite-specialization as a traitline.

Q: What happens to the rest (Boon duration, condition duration, Ferocity, Compassion?

five core specializations
Just for clarification: Means the last trait line will still be selectable in combinations with an elite-specialization? F.e. you can be a druid specializing in Beastmastery.

a single elite specialization
In the blog post you wrote: “For now, characters will only be able to equip a single elite specialization.” Just for clarification: You will only be able to select one elite specialization at a time, but (in time) you will be able to select one out of multiple specializations? You can’t have two or three elite specializations selected at the same time, can’t you?

Seems like you are remaking the core trait build of the game again. Specialization and Masteries though are weapon masteries going to factor into specializations?

Question 1 (most important): How does an elite specialization getting an offhand weapon with only 2 skills balance with an elite specialization getting a 2hander with 5 new skills. Offhand weapons tend to have really long cooldowns so they have less overall impact.

Question 2: Some of the traits that are getting culled are actually ones that are getting used and traits that are remaining are ones that people would have preferred seen culled. From the example of water magic that we saw today, one of my favorite traits, vital striking, is getting culled, why and where can we make up that 10% dps loss?

Devildoc.6721:

Question 2: Some of the traits that are getting culled are actually ones that are getting used and traits that are remaining are ones that people would have preferred seen culled. From the example of water magic that we saw today, one of my favorite traits, vital striking, is getting culled, why and where can we make up that 10% dps loss?

Some of the traits are getting merged.

For example, Vital Striking is getting merged with Aquamancer’s Alacrity to make Aquamancer’s Training in the Master tier.

Can you elaborate on specializations that are just getting an offhand weapon? Are they getting anything to compensate for that disparity? Engineers get kits but they need to sacrifice utilities for that and they are also unable to swap weapons so there’s actually balance their but with elite specializations your giving some professions 5 new weapon skills and others only 2, that seems very unfair.

Is the Elementalist elite specialization called Tempest? If so what else can you tell us about it?

Can we expect a reasonable balance for the Minor Traits?

For instance, the Gandmaster Minor of Earth Magic of the Elementalist is rather weak and misplaced. Will those bad Minor be changed or balanced in the new specializations?

Added to that, some Major Traits were designed to compliment with another Major Trait from another Line without investing fully to it. (Signet mastery:::Earth Adept + Shard of Ice ::: Water Adept)
What will happen to these kind of specific combo of traits that required a small investment in the Trait Line?

Blasting Staff, Elementalist. How will a staff Elementalist not trait for Arcana considering the current existence of this mendatory Trait?

Q: Will these changes go live before HoT launches?

Q: Will characters be grandfathered in for skill and trait unlocks?
– If not, what will happen for pre-existing characters that haven’t completed many Skill Challenges?
– When you say “A single character who’s done a fair amount of the hero challenges should be able to unlock all of the core specializations, skills, and traits” about what percent are you imagining? Is “a fair amount” 55%? 90%?

Q: How will WvW-exclusive level 80 characters gain Hero Points?

Q: I noticed from the Water Trait line graphic that the demo character is at Water Rank 10, and requires 25 Hero Points to increase rank. It appears they have a pool of 2048 Hero Points. This suggests to me that Hero Points will not be awarded 1 per level or 1 per Hero Challenge. It also seems to indicate there are 16 ranks in the Water trait line, one for each major and minor trait. Is this the general idea? If so:
– will the number of Hero Points awarded per level increase as a character increases in level, ie 5 at level 5 but 110 at level 70?
– Will Hero Challenges award different amounts depending on level, ie 1 from a Queensdale challenge, but 25 from a Cursed Shore challenge?
– And will the cost per rank increase, ie something like 1 point for rank 1, 25 for rank 11, and 50 for rank 16.

Q: Will Hero Points be earned every level, or in chunks at different levels, as Skill Points are now?

Q: Will parts of skill/trait trees be level gated, IE Adept major slots unlock at 30, Master major slots at 60, and Grandmaster at 80?

Q: Are traits that affect certain skill types spread out across more than three trait trees?

Q: Will we be able to select, for example, 4 Adept traits and 2 Master traits, instead of 3/3/3?

Q: How will excess Skill Points be exchanged for Mystic Forge materials? Automatically and randomly? Based on the amount of Skill Points a character currently has? Through a vendor? What will happen to excess Scrolls of Knowledge? Should I consume all of those now?

Q: What currency will replace Skill Points for things like Bloodstone Shards and Augur’s Stones? Hero Points?

Q: Will the difference between armor tiers and their stats be percentage based? IE Ascended is about 10% stronger than Exotic, will that remain true?

My questions really revolve around trying to understand what the design team is aiming for here, because unfortunately today’s news is the first which has made me think HoT might be the point where I actually walk away from the game entirely.

Question:
What is the design goal for locking players down into only 3 trait lines? In a game that is without a trinity (and better for it IMHO), why are you now driving players towards specialized builds, and giving us less choices in how we craft out play style?

I ask this because that change alone kills 4 out of the 5 builds I use frequently. I prefer playing a generalist role, I like to have my builds balanced with perhaps a bit of lean to one role or another, but I rarely spec full bunker, full DPS and so on.

In an action game, I see nothing wrong with building an all-rounder toon. My builds aren’t “using 2 points to cover a fundamental weakness,” they are speccing into 4 or 5 lines very deliberately to support my own play style to good effect. Furthermore, in some of the more popular builds those few extra points that can go to different trait lines are how players make the build fit their own play style and give it a bit of a personal touch. Isn’t the lock down on trait lines removing this personal touch?

Question 2:
I have often felt the lack of build variety in PVE has nothing to do with the traits, as I have used very odd traits with very good results in differing situations and we see more build variety in PvP areas where things are less predictable and where not everything can be dodged. Instance design drives the Zerk or nothing meta, not trait and gear selection IMHO.

So, will the instance design in HoT be varied from the base game to actually encourage different builds in PVE?

If not, my biggest concern is predictable, completely dodgable instances combined with a lock down on trait lines results in players using even less builds, not more for dungeons. I mean, if the only goal is DPS and players can only select 3 trait lines, most of the builds become glaringly obvious.

What exactly will happen with existing skill points?
Will there be any difference between what happens with existing skill points on a level 80 toon with all skills unlocked and a sub-80 with only some skills?
What about skill point scrolls?

Saying “skill points will be converted into crafting materials” is a very vague answer and does not help me make any intelligent choice with the thousands I have been saving for legendaries and ascended items.

Will you be adding more core specialisations to classes or just the elite ones?

You mentioned that switching specializations will be as “easy” as it currently is to swap traits. Some may argue that this in fact is not easy, and would like to see a build-saving system similar to the one in GW1. Can this be a possibility?

Q: Skill points aren’t just a way of unlocking traits and skills. They’re a form of currency. What happens with all the mystic forge recipes that require Eldridge Scrolls or Philosopher’s Stones, or more importantly, Bloodstone Shards? How are people supposed to make the current legendaries if all skill points suddenly disappear and no one can buy bloodstone shards? What happens with Bloodstone Shards and Eldridge Scrolls people have already bought and were saving? Will the new legendaries require Bloodstone Shards? Last but not least, please for the love of god, DEFINE “mystic forge crafting materials”.

Will vitality, toughness and healing power be as useless as they are now in PvE or will they become more necessary with this Xpac? Also will PvE ever get any real AI making the creatures more than just large punching bags of health making the meta be “zerk or go home”?

I like to do a bit of theory crafting and enjoy building characters with a eye on themes (chill thief etc.) will any of my creations be anything more than a waste of time in PvE as they are now?

I have a question…what happens to the skill points your character already has? If it mimics how the skill points currently works but in currency form, do all the skill points on all your characters then become account bound?

In PvP and PvE, some builds relied on the stat boost from a Trait line to work with gear that did not provide them.

For instance I’m not that comfortable on a full berzerker thief but, since I like to trait in shadow arts, I made a lot of my ascended armor berzerker with some valkyrie and I still have decent defensive stats. And the 300 Toughness I get from the Trait is much more than the 74 base increase mentionned in the blog.

Question: When you say you will split on the equipment the remaining (226) attribute points from traits that are not added to the base stats, will you simply increase the existing stats (making min/maxed characters even more so) or will new stats be added to existing items? Like Berzerker getting some Toughness and/or Vitality?

Traits have icons now!? How will I know what number trait I’m selecting?!

I got three questions:

1. You mentioned in the blog that Mortar will now be a kit skill. Will this mean Mortar will be changed or updated to have most/all of the normal kit functionality (i.e. a bundle you carry with it’s own skills that you can swap to when using the skill), or remain as it is (an environmental/turret-like object that you spawn and can interact with) and just trigger kit traits on spawn/use?

2. Will Hero points, like Mastery points, be region-specific? Will I have to play HoT content for Maguuma-specific Hero points to unlock progress on the new elite specialization tracks, or will I be able to make instant progress on whatever the Engineer elite spec will be thanks to being an 80 with full map completion?

3. The Blog mentions that base and gear stats will increase to make up from the lack of stats for pick specific specialization paths, with the exception of the class-specific attribute. (which will be made half baseline, half earned when picking the specialization based off of the trait line that used to give it) This explanation seems to forget two trait-based stats that are not profession-specific nor have an easy gear equivalent: Boon Duration and Condition Duration. Will these be getting a similar treatment as profession attributes (with some bonus to one or the other added to certain specialization tracks) or if not, will the few equipable items that increased these two stats (which I believe 99% of which are Runes) have their boon and/or condi duration increased to make up for the lack of any Boon and Condition Duration that can be earned via traits?

Nitross.6987:

In PvP and PvE, some builds relied on the stat boost from a Trait line to work with gear that did not provide them.

For instance I’m not that comfortable on a full berzerker thief but, since I like to trait in shadow arts, I made a lot of my ascended armor berzerker with some valkyrie and I still have decent defensive stats. And the 300 Toughness I get from the Trait is much more than the 74 base increase mentionned in the blog.

Question: When you say you will split on the equipment the remaining (226) attribute points from traits that are not added to the base stats, will you simply increase the existing stats (making min/maxed characters even more so) or will new stats be added to existing items? Like Berzerker getting some Toughness and/or Vitality?

I’m not a dev, but I’m guessing the former.

…and it won’t be as big of a deal as you think. The primary bonus stat for the first two trait lines on every profession are Power and Precision, respectively, and Ferocity is the secondary attribute for one of then on half the professions as well. This fact is a large reason -perhaps moreso than the actual traits themselves- that almost all of the meta builds you find (especially for dungeon speedruns) start with 6/6/x or 6/5/x or 4/6/x and so on. That extra 300 Power and Precision from maxing those trait lines isn’t something you forgo lightly.

I have a question regarding switching between normal professions and elite specialization; Would the elite specialization be able to wear a different set of armor then the regular profession, i.e. a ranger wears berserker armor while druid wears knight armor, something akin to a build template, and if yes, would this also apply to the wardrobe system as well?

One of the newest traits added to the game, Radiant Retaliation, stopped working 6 months ago and never got fixed. Will the new traits being added come with a warranty?

Are they going to take completely Broken Traits more seriously in the future?

You will only have 3 choices for a slot and you can’t avoid that slot. If one trait is broken, you only have 2 choices. If one of those is Traps or Signets which you don’t use, then that one broken trait ends up forcing you to take the one remaining trait (which could be for condition damage, reviving, or something which you may not need or want.)

While it hard to predict how all of this will play out one concern I have is this.

Not all classes are created with the same base attributes. Warriors start with far more health than do thieves and elementalists from the get go so there far less onus on the warrior class to seek out sources of vitality be it in their armor or trinkets or in their traitline.

Decoupling Vitality from the traits tree and throwing it into armor or trinkets puts far more pressure on the lower hit point classes to use Vitality adding armor and trinkets.

In the current system lower hit point classes can mitigate this to an extent by selecting the traitline that adds vitality meaning less need to mix in vitality based armor and trinkets.

This translates into less choice from for lower HP classes. The only way I can see this being addressed is all classes having the same health from the get go.

I have to admit, the changes to the trait system make me at the same timer very exited and very worried.
So here are my questions:

1. What will happen to increased condition/ boon duration?

With those two values being removed from trait lines, what will happen to players who rely on those boosts? Even if we would get new gear with those stats, we would have to give up others we have just to retain our current condition or boon duration. Ultimately making those characters weaker.

2.Will we still be able to use lower tier “traits” in higher tiers? Edit: (Scrap the question and make it a rant instead XD Read over the article again. We won’t be able to)

When I play with my d/d thief in pve I usually use all adapt traits in “shadow arts” to fit my needs. If I’m now locked to use only 1 trait of each tier, not only will the diversity of my build options and my choice of play style be very limited, but potentially even weakening my character. ]

3.With more stats now moved to armour and base character stats, will the current balance we achieved with our characters be kept in mind? Or will we now be forced to change our equipment to retain it?

With only exotic gear this wouldn’t be such a problem, but what about those with ascended equipment? Not everyone has the time or skill to just farm huge amounts of money every day. Getting ascended equipment can be very time and money consuming , especially if you play several characters. So this could mean a lot of extra effort for people just to retain the balance between offence and defence they achieved for their characters. This becomes even worse if you need several gear sets for different parts of the game.

4. Will we have to complete all hero challenges (skill challenges) on our lvl 80 characters who have all their traits unlocked to retain the traits we got now? Or will I be stripped of my traits just because I haven’t done world completion on him/her yet?

If I’m doing world completion on a character I usually like to take my time and enjoy it. But if I can’t continue to play the usual content with my characters anymore because my traits will basically be stripped from me I would need to rush finish all the skill points just to get back what I have now. Which I really would hate to be forced to.

How is this new system going to work in PvP? If the stats are being removed from trait lines and put into armour and weapons and PvP is where everyone has the same base stats. Does this mean runes will get stat increases to create the diversity it has at the moment?
This seems like a strange idea to implement into PvP where build diversity is needed more than ever to make it more fun

One other Question I forgot:

4.)Old skills points; you mentioned they will be converted to an currently undefined Mystic Forge material. Can you say what exactly will they turn into? and will this material, be it new or a currently existing thing, replace all the skill point-bought mats (be they crystals/etc for MF recipes or Augur’s stones for ascended gear), or become the new currency to purchase things like Siege Master’s Guides and Bloodstone Shards?

Q: With the change to skill points, how will we acquire blood stone shards for legendary crafting ? this thing alone costs 200 skill points. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodstone_Shard

Q: What about all the other stuff Miyani sells for skill Points.

Q: Hero point system, will veteran players be grandfathered into it? meaning all my characters from before the change will still have all skills, traits and utilities unlocked. Regardless of how many hero points one of my alt characters may or may not have.

Sorry if this has been asked:

Does this new system mean that the existing traitlines are essentially ‘locked in’ in their trait numbers? For example, each trait line has 3 grandmaster traits, coinciding with the current live build’s three GM traits. Given the layout of the page it seems there isn’t much room for expanding that system. Does this mean that, in the future, all expansion to traits and specializations will be in new lines, rather than in old ones? For example, is it likely we won’t be seeing any new Grandmaster fire traits, so there are 4 to choose from? And rather than see ing additional choices from preexisting trait lines we’ll only see new trait lines instead?

My question (I think it hasn’t been asked)
If I am specialized in Fire Magic, with my choices in major traits, then I unequip it to equip Water Magic specialization so I can heal more in a boss or something and then I go back to Fire Magic. Are my previous choices in major traits remembered, or do I have to set it again?

While not “build templates”, I think this would already give some measure of QoL and also be easy enough to implement. Can we have this pleaaase?

Curo.2483:

You mentioned that switching specializations will be as “easy” as it currently is to swap traits. Some may argue that this in fact is not easy, and would like to see a build-saving system similar to the one in GW1. Can this be a possibility?

This!! One of the nice things about GW1 was the ability to save builds which allowed a player to quickly switch out as needed. It also had the added bonus of people being able to share the builds they are running very quickly. I realize that without the flipping in and out of skills on the skill bar that this becomes less important, it was still a player friendly feature that would be much appreciated if it was brought into this game.

My question:
Will ANet expand the wallet to allow for proper storage of all currencies currently not able to be stored and for the future vague mystic forge currency?

Josh Davis.6015:

Hi all,

I’ll be pulling your questions out of Twitch chat, this forum post, and posts all over the forums and having our design team address them.

First the math:

• Right now a single trait line take to 6 points has 418 possible arrangements of traits. Ignoring anything other than 6/6/2 set-ups (and there are many other combinations that have well regarded examples) that gives 31,450,320 traits combinations per class.

• The new system allows a total of 27 arrangements per line. If you like two adept level traits, tough, you can’t have them. Ever. Being locked to exactly 6/6/6 means there is a total of 10 possible unique line combinations bringing the total number of trait set-ups per class to 196,830 (27^3×10). Add another 196,830 for each elite line they introduce.

• At HoT launch including the one elite spec-line per class we are going to drop down to one-eightieth (1/80 or 1.25%) of our current range of choices.

This is not subject to discussion. This is math. Almost 99% of all potential Build Diversity will be annihilated (and I’ve hedged heavily in favor of the new system by ignoring 6/4/2/2 builds and other non-standard but fun/effective set-ups).

Now THE QUESTION:

Was getting rid of bad choices really worth wiping out 99% of all choices?

Will Mesmer’s Dueling X, Deceptive Evasion, become core class functionality?

Another question or questions:
Will the components needed to craft legendaries change? For those of us that already have some of these components that were purchased with skill points, are we going to end up holding the bag with these?

I’m really concerned about builds feeling at all unique anymore. I create each of my characters with a fighting style in mind. If I look around and everyone else is doing the exact same things, how does that make the game more immersive, or interesting, or fun? How is the removing of options, the variables allowing for creativity, an improvement? This is appears to be dumbing down the trait system to a point where it loses its soul.

Currently I save up skill point scrolls so that I can instantly build up a new alt’s skill selection.

Am I correct in interpreting the change as meaning that I will no longer be able to quickly build a character without running around doing skill challenges ?

I asked this in another thread, consolidating it here:

If we swap our chosen trait lines away from the Elite Spec while we have the new weapon equipped, where does the weapon go? My druthers would be that the Hero Panel would have a slot for it so it doesn’t go randomly into our bags.

And that might mean having two new slots for weapons so whatever we have equipped can rotate with the trait swapping, though I’m too brain fried due to a RL emergency to suss out a good and elegant way to cover all the weapon set contingencies.

Another question… with the transition from skill points to hero points.. how does this affect skill points for the mystic forge and legendary weapons?

Seeing how the trait system is already receiving a major overhaul, might we finally see the addition of a build saving system?

Nike.2631:

Josh Davis.6015:

Hi all,

I’ll be pulling your questions out of Twitch chat, this forum post, and posts all over the forums and having our design team address them.

First the math:

• Right now a single trait line take to 6 points has 418 possible arrangements of traits. Ignoring anything other than 6/6/2 set-ups (and there are many other combinations that have well regarded examples) that gives 31,450,320 traits combinations per class.

• The new system allows a total of 27 arrangements per line. If you like two adept level traits, tough, you can’t have them. Ever. Being locked to exactly 6/6/6 means there is a total of 10 possible unique line combinations bringing the total number of trait set-ups per class to 196,830 (27^3×10). Add another 196,830 for each elite line they introduce.

• At HoT launch including the one elite spec-line per class we are going to drop down to one-eightieth (1/80 or 1.25%) of our current range of choices.

This is not subject to discussion. This is math. Almost 99% of all potential Build Diversity will be annihilated (and I’ve hedged heavily in favor of the new system by ignoring 6/4/2/2 builds and other non-standard but fun/effective set-ups).

Now THE QUESTION:

Was getting rid of bad choices really worth wiping out 99% of all choices?

I’d say very easily, yes. Many many of those are pseudo choices. Choices like that are often considered a trap, and regardless if it feels “open”, traps are bad for game design for many reasons. It makes it kitten new players and makes balancing impossible, which are the two main issues.

In addition, out of those MASSIVE amounts of “set ups” we already manage to narrow it down to 1-2 with a couple slight variations. If the new set up is handled properly, it will allow more personal preference choices, and the most exciting part about locked adept/master tiers is that it forces people to make harder decisions.

A billion pointless decisions with only one real answer < Several impactful decisions and having to really think of when to give up something for something else.

I think the turn out will be great as long as they keep up frequent balance changes after the Expansion hits.

Ah yes, another query!

In a third party news interview you said you want to unlock specializations around level 20. Was that the old pre-blog meaning of specialization, ie the Elite Specs as we now know them to be named, or the new one of Core Spec, so essentially just traits at level 20 and Elite Specs still not til later, likely 80?

It seems like the blog says their will be some stats allocated based on proffession.

For example, a theif may have more base power than a guardian, is this accurate?

based on this part;
“Each profession’s attributes will be updated to have half of their functionality be part of a specialization and half of their functionality will be a baseline for that profession.”

I noticed there wasn’t a fall damage trait in the ele’s water specialization. Will that be added to some other trait line or acquired by some other means? Maybe through a jumping mastery line?

ronpierce.2760:

In addition, out of those MASSIVE amounts of “set ups” we already manage to narrow it down to 1-2 with a couple slight variations. If the new set up is handled properly, it will allow more personal preference choices, and the most exciting part about locked adept/master tiers is that it forces people to make harder decisions.

Ah. yes, well, serving the groupthink over all other player types is one goal they are accomplishing in spades.

The people who think there’s only 1-2 way to have fun with a class will still think that after this change – they gain or lose nothing. It’s the other players that are getting their options maimed.

Hello and I hope many of the questions will be answered esp about what happens to skill points since I have a lot of them. How will the “materials” or “currency” be handled; and the costs of further materials like Auger stones be handled.

I would like to know if all skills and/or traits that are currently unlocked will stay unlocked even if they are changed, also what is to be changed; esp if the Grandmaster traits that have been bought w/skill points/gold OR earned will still be unlocked.

Also the acquisition of the new “Hero” points; will this be the same as it is now; e.g. I walk up to a skill point and commune and get a skill point or is it Instanced, harder and more difficult, and/or can I repeat daily for hero points, is there a cooldown, is it once per New map completion, etc.

What will happen to the skill point scrolls I have saved.

Will this apply to Vanilla GW2, I may not buy HoT right away but is this to happen even if I do not get HoT.

How will I unlock more trait lines, esp what the costs to do this are, esp since I already have almost all traits now, in all trait lines.

I have a lot of concerns over the changes but am still hopeful for a positive outcome.

Thanks for reading, hope I see some good stuff in the livestream tomorrow

Nike.2631:

ronpierce.2760:

In addition, out of those MASSIVE amounts of “set ups” we already manage to narrow it down to 1-2 with a couple slight variations. If the new set up is handled properly, it will allow more personal preference choices, and the most exciting part about locked adept/master tiers is that it forces people to make harder decisions.

Ah. yes, well, serving the groupthink over all other player types is one goal they are accomplishing in spades.

The people who think there’s only 1-2 way to have fun with a class will still think that after this change – they gain or lose nothing. It’s the other players that are getting their options maimed.

The groupthink? Seems pretty common for people to be complaining right now. The key is setting up the game for a better future. Sometimes you have to give up something for something better. You will be alright, I promise. There will be new ways to play, and if you found a way you enjoyed before, I’m sure you will after HOT without having 2 points in some random off-tree. You’re exaggerating how much this is going to “kill” all of your precious builds.

I definitely have some misgivings in the idea of uncoupling traits and stats, particularly in the way those numbers will potentially be ‘made up’. First of all, In upping stats from 926 to 1000, that doesn’t account for loss in the minor stats. My condi ranger will potentially lose 300 condition damage and 300 toughness, as well as 3k HP, my elementalist will have a 200 Healing Power and 2k HP deficit. The only way, from what I am reading, to make up that deficit is going to be to switch gear, meaning that a full set of Sinister ascended gear on the ranger will have to be traded out for weaker Dire gear in order to close the gap caused by this shift.

I thought that Anet’s stance was that our hard work in building our ascended gear wouldn’t be destroyed? However, I don’t see how this isn’t the case since all characters will likely end up losing some stats vital to their build across the board?

ronpierce.2760:

Nike.2631:

ronpierce.2760:

In addition, out of those MASSIVE amounts of “set ups” we already manage to narrow it down to 1-2 with a couple slight variations. If the new set up is handled properly, it will allow more personal preference choices, and the most exciting part about locked adept/master tiers is that it forces people to make harder decisions.

Ah. yes, well, serving the groupthink over all other player types is one goal they are accomplishing in spades.

The people who think there’s only 1-2 way to have fun with a class will still think that after this change – they gain or lose nothing. It’s the other players that are getting their options maimed.

The groupthink? Seems pretty common for people to be complaining right now. The key is setting up the game for a better future. Sometimes you have to give up something for something better. You will be alright, I promise. There will be new ways to play, and if you found a way you enjoyed before, I’m sure you will after HOT without having 2 points in some random off-tree. You’re exaggerating how much this is going to “kill” all of your precious builds.

if you werent playing a meta build, there is a very high chance your build will die.

as for giving up something to get something.
You are right in theory, but anet has a habit of making these systems that are supposed to allow them to do so much, so easily, that never happens.

the weapon skill system was supposed to allow them to introduce new weapons really easily. in 3 years, we are finally getting one new weapon per class.

the initial trait system was supposed to make it easy to add a new traitline/traits
in 3 years we get one new line, and overall trait number gets shaved.

Guild missions were supposed to be easy to add to, and how many new guild missions did they add?

basically many of the changes to make it easy to add to/fix, never really add much/fix to anything in practice.